Hmm not sure about this. I would say that the size of the company (or rather, its profit/disposable income) greatly affects flexibility of employee benefiting p

Hmm not sure about this. I would say that the size of the company (or rather, its profit/disposable income) greatly affects flexibility of employee benefiting policies, at least when it comes to the financial costs associated with them. So yes, if you work in a very profitable company under a crappy manager then it will be a very crappy life. If you work in a non-profitable company under a great manager it will be a better life than the former but not matter how great your manager is he/she won't be able to help you with things like benefits, compensation, additional hardware/software to make your work easier. The size of the company also gives a lot more options to find different projects to work on. I would say statistically speaking you are likely to end up with an average manager and if you are then it's better to be at a largely profitable company while under such a manager. :)